Monday, 16 March 2009

Frogs, kids, trees and sunshine

Going for a ride should be a happy-happy enjoyable experience. Why bother if that's not the case? I don't want to be like Sisyphus.

I managed to crank out another 42km, taking me to 187km for the week. I was tempted to put a few more turns on the wheels and go for 200km, but that will have to wait for another day. I'm happy with 187km, and tomorrow I will rest before starting the clock again on another week.

This short photo essay shows the ride through Homebush, home of the 2000 Olympics. It takes me about 15 minutes to ride there from home, meandering through pleasant suburban backstreets for the main. There are plenty of walking/riding tracks through the entire Homebush area, and here we go:

Most of the roads have nice wide bike lanes marked on them, although the trees along this stretch have a nasty habit of shedding needles that build up and completely smother the bike lane in a slippery coating of mush. But it is nice to ride down relatively quiet tree-lined avenues. Except for the semi-trailers visiting the recycling plant at the end of this avenue.

The on-road section finishes at a site called Woo-la-ra (I think), which is not to be confused with Woolahra in the eastern suburbs. From Woo-la-ra, there is a series of lovely bike/walking tracks that take you to either Silverwater Jail or the harbour - take your pick.

This area is known as "The Armoury", since it used to be a naval armoury. The train tracks to the left were for ammunition trains that went from the storage bunkers down to the docks.

I have never seen a train running through here, but there's always a first time.....

The blue sign said "school kids ahead", and it wasn't wrong.

All you ever wanted to know about the Green and Golden bell frog. I know one thing - they do not eat enough mosquitoes, or there are not enough frogs (they are supposed to be rare, which might explain the swarms of mozzies around here at night).

A swarm of school kids. Like all idiots without common sense, they completely filled the path from side to side, and their teachers had no control over them. I rang my bell at them, and although the teachers yelled at the kids to move left, half a dozen failed to comply because they were too deep in loud conversations with their friends.

The teachers were spotty, fat, and even more badly dressed than the motley kids. I saw them on my way home, scooping stuff out of the swamp to the left with nets. I hope they all got eaten alive by mozzies, and now have malaria.

One of the sports arenas at Homebush, rising out of the bush like an alien spacecraft.

Lots and lots and lots and lots of cookie-cutter apartments have been built around this area. I think most of it was the athlete's village for the games in 2000. Not a bad place to live, except for the bloody bugs. I have been out this way after dark, and the blood sucking creeps are the size of small birds. The residents can thank the state government for stopping the funding of aerial spraying around the swamps.

More green and pleasant parkland, free of children and spotty teachers.

And just around the corner, civilisation as we know it came to an end. More on that later.